Published 10:00 pm, Friday, April 19, 2002

Even at $10-$12 a pop, these tumblers -- given free in 1962 -- are snatched up today.

Even at $10-$12 a pop, these tumblers -- given free in 1962 -- are snatched up today.

Photo: Joshua Trujillo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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This Space Needle pen and hundreds like it were meant to be sold at the fair, but weren't ready in time. They were filed away, then recently rediscovered, restored and put on sale for $19.62 in the Space Needle gift shop. less

This Space Needle pen and hundreds like it were meant to be sold at the fair, but weren't ready in time. They were filed away, then recently rediscovered, restored and put on sale for $19.62 in the Space Needle ... more

Photo: Joshua Trujillo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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George Whitney, fair director of concessions and amusements, shows off some of the souvenirs waiting to be sold. At top right is a souvenir picture book. Despite the hoopla over the fair's 40th anniversary, the bulk of items are often priced at $20 and less. less

George Whitney, fair director of concessions and amusements, shows off some of the souvenirs waiting to be sold. At top right is a souvenir picture book. Despite the hoopla over the fair's 40th anniversary, the ... more

Photo: / Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Value of Seattle World's Fair memorabilia is in the heart

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Nothing evokes the future like a piece of the past.

Ask any 21st-century collector of memorabilia from Century 21 -- the 1962 Seattle World's Fair that envisioned a sleek new tomorrowland inspired by science and human ingenuity.

"I think people collect World's Fair stuff so they can say, "Forty years ago, this is what the city thought the future was going to be like," says Sumner collector Andrea Pankonin.

For some, "C21" tumblers with a towering Space Needle or stylistic Gay Way will stir up a long tall drink of memories.

"We all had them when we were kids," says Jane Mooney, owner of Antiques at Pike Place. "I can still see my parents throwing parties in the '60s with those glasses -- everybody drinking and laughing."

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Even at $10-$12 a pop -- the promotional glasses were given away free in 1962 -- she can hardly keep them in the store. "A lot of people in their 40s and 50s come in saying, 'Oh gosh! Those totally remind me of my parents," says Mooney. "We sell those things like hot cakes."

Norm Bolotin, a writer/historian who has collected C21 memorabilia since he attended the fair at the age of 11, is especially enamored of the plastic ballpoint Space Needle pen he conned his parents into buying him on site. It cost a ridiculous $3.25 in 1962. "I don't think it's worth that much today."

Still, he's picked up another half dozen, paying from $1-$8. "Why? There's absolutely no reason. It's just that six of them on the shelf look better than one."

Bolotin also prizes the patch from his father's work shirt. His dad was a swing-shift machinist at the fair, and young Norm had free rein around the fairgrounds. "How could anything be cooler than something related to you?" says the self-described collector nerd. "I like things that have meaning, that have stories behind them."

Surprisingly, the world of C21 collectibles is a relatively easy and affordable one to enter. Despite the hoopla over the fair's 40th anniversary, the bulk of items are often priced at $20 and less. "Customers say, 'Oh! We can't believe your prices are still so reasonable," says Mooney.

That's refreshing in a world where "memorabilia," defined as "something worth remembering," is more often regarded as something worth jacking up in price and selling for inflated lucre. In some cases, prices have even gone down.

"A set of glasses that went for $75 around here 15 to 20 years ago, all of a sudden they are popping up for $15 on eBay," says Bolotin.

One reason is the sheer number of collectibles in Seattle. "There are thousands and thousands of items here," says Gasoline Alley Antiques owner Keith Schneider. "A lot of things showed up in a warehouse about 10 years ago ... certain items that were really hard to find turned up in mass quantities."

Schneider said he sells far more collectibles to out-of-state customers than to locals. "Why collect something that's so readily available?"

Another reason for affordability is that -- sorry, Seattle -- C21 just doesn't have the collectible cachet of other world expositions. "The Seattle Fair is a secondary fair in terms of collecting," says Bolotin. "The Chicago fairs and the New York fair far outstrip it.

"We come in at about the level of St. Louis."

Seattle wasn't even listed on the eBay "fairs" category until last year. "I had to complain to them three times in writing," says Lorraine Burdick from Puyallup, who has sold a World's Fair charm bracelet, Space Needle earrings, and coloring books over eBay.

The online auction site has transformed the Seattle World's Fair memorabilia market. On any given day, there may be between 200 to 300 collectible C21 items on eBay. "It's become this national antique mall, where everything comes out of the woodwork," says Bolotin.

Some sellers are now posting items to time with the fair's anniversary. One is Darlene Croft of Bellevue, who posted a charm bracelet she bought at the fair with a minimum bid of $3, and watched it quickly climb in value. "I didn't pay much," says Croft, who still remembers traveling to the fair, alone, from the Olympic Peninsula. She was 31. She spent two full days combing through every exhibit, and picked just one souvenir -- the bracelet, with hand-selected charms.

Many collectors score at area garage sales. One is Pankonin, who found a '62 World's Fair Pocket Oil Tube in a church rummage sale in Tacoma. "It was in a grab bag. I probably paid $1 for the whole bag," says the Sumner collector, who posted the tube on eBay with a $3.50 minimum. She also has C21 plates and teacups online.

Two garage-sale finds she refuses to part with are a chrome lighter shaped like the Space Needle (a steal at $2), and a Jim Beam decanter (a score for $5), with scenes of Mount Rainier, a Boeing airplane, the Needle and an orca. "It's so beautiful," says Pankonin. "And it's used. You can tell where the person grabbed it and poured whiskey out of it, because the gold is worn off. "I like stuff to show the life that it's had."

At local stores, the decanter might fetch $40-$50. On eBay, one just sold for $12.

But not everything World's Fair is bargain-basement.

Bolotin recently sold a California collector a C21 rotating lamp, with a Monorail slipping through the city, for more than $350, and a New England collector bought four large fair banners for $100-$125. Champagne glasses from the christening of the Space Needle can run from $100 to $300. The green stems are shaped like the Needle. The top is the traditional champagne mold.

Gene Uttinger is the proud owner of two. "There were less than 1,000 christening glasses made," says the Seattle collector. It was the Needle that drew him into collecting. "It's that whole space-age modernistic theme. The spaceship on top there always intrigued me."

Uttinger estimates he has 1,500 fair items. But the christening glasses remain his favorite. "They are very rare," he says.

Rarity, itself, is a rarity in C21 memorabilia. But there's always a collector's eyes on the prize.

"Even the richest guy and the biggest nerd can't have everything," says Bolotin. "You'll always find a gum machine or Bubblelator or brick from the Coliseum, find something that someone doesn't have.